Joaquin Phoenix Returns!

Ever since Letterman made him look silly on national television, we haven’t heard much about Joaquin Phoenix or his fake rap career. But now he’s back! The former actor has popped up, sans homeless-person beard, in a new YouTube video supporting the suicide-prevention nonprofit TWLOHA. Also in the video is his old flame Liv Tyler and (future flame?) Miley Cyrus. Not in the video? Any mention of Joaquin’s music. So what is going on with that, anyway?

Well, according to E!, the hip-hop mockumentary Casey Affleck was making is now in postproduction, which explains why Joaquin has broken character in the new video. It also means that, for better or worse, we won’t get any more poorly executed stunts from Joaquin. But will it mean we’ll get to hear an actual Joaquin Phoenix rap album? Hopefully it does, because apparently he is a musical genius. His buddy Julian Shah-Taylor, with whom he recorded eight rock songs in 2007, told E! that Phoenix is “a Beatles, Oasis, Bowie-style songwriter. I hold it in that high esteem … coming out with a brilliant album of great music would not surprise anybody, and I think that’s maybe why he didn’t release it … And I think it’s better to have some secrets, and I think Joaquin’s secret is his prodigious music talent.” No word yet on whether his flow is more late-eighties Rakim or mid-nineties Biggie.